The South Lawn Plot

by Ray O'Hanlon

  The only silver lining was lunch. He had made it known that he wanted his favorite pork chops, done just the way he liked them: medium. How he ate his pork and steak, it had lately occurred to Packer, was just about the only medium aspect to his life. All the rest was raw or overcooked.

  He moved to the door, hesitated a second, activated a smile and stepped into the bright sunlight. He waved, tried to put a bit of a bounce in his step as he alighted from the helicopter, made another wave and then pointed his finger. Just in time, Packer noticed that there was nobody in his finger's line of sight, so he adjusted it slightly and allowed it rest on what was obviously a group of Secret Service people, all familiar, except the woman in the blue business suit.

  Yes, of course, he remembered, the new agent.

  Packer, despite his differences with the Service over the barriers beyond the South Lawn railings, felt a deep respect for those whose lives were on the line for his. He had teased members of his detail from time to time. “Sure you would want to take a bullet for a guy like me?” he quizzed more than one agent, usually when they had been freshly assigned. The blandness of the replies had never ceased to amaze him. They never went much beyond “Yes, Mr. President.”

  One agent had replied, “Absolutely certain, Mr. President.” Stew Lewis was now his principal protector. Packer had noticed Lewis making a flanking move to his right as he walked deliberately across the grass, trying to add seconds to this neutral, consequence-free presidential moment.

  Lewis was now standing with the service greeting party. Packer knew now to make a, well, beeline for it. With just a few feet to go, just before Lewis introduced the newest member of the presidential security detail, President William “Bud” Packer reached by far the most indisputable conclusion of the day, indeed all the recent days.

  My God, he thought, his eyes resting on Cleo Conway, a goddess is protecting a mere mortal.

  50

  ON THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED Packer's return from Camp David the political situation deteriorated even as the water of the Taiwan Strait became more churned up with the vessels of war.

  As the fleets assembled, the politicians and military leaders in Beijing and Washington became increasingly concerned about an accidental exchange occurring before any irreversible decision to launch a strike was even contemplated. For its part, the United States was kept busy trying to discourage those of its more vigorous allies, especially old Warsaw Pact nations eager to prove their fealty to the West, from sending troops to the crisis zone.

  The British, of course, were allowed to show up and promptly did so in the form of the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious and a supporting battle group. The Australians, too, got a pass into the strait and sent a destroyer and, even more ominously, a hospital ship.

  The French and Italians put to sea but wisely stayed well over the horizon, mostly in the eastern reaches of the Indian Ocean. The Russians didn't put to sea at all, and there were barbed comments in news reports that the Russian navy's larger ships were still too much of the rust bucket variety, this despite a much publicized effort to bring back some of the blue water capability of the Soviet era.

  Moscow's statements to the United Nations Security Council carried a distinct preference for Beijing's point of view, but mostly the Russian envoy indulged in rather smug and self-congratulatory speeches about peace and world order. The Americans and Chinese envoys largely ignored him, concentrating instead on mutual condemnation.

  The Chinese delegation, at certain moments, unleashed lines that sounded to some of the older U.N. hands like hand-me-downs from Chairman Mao. The Taiwanese strutted vigorously. Troop convoys drove up and down the island and navy patrol boats rushed back and forth along the island's coastline, especially that which faced across the strait to the mainland.

  Taiwan's normally raucous politicians were, by contrast, unusually quiet. There were no fiery speeches about throwing the enemy back into the sea. One or two members of the island's parliament came out with rather sappy speeches about the glories of Chinese history, no distinction made with regard to where those glories actually took form.

  The mainland media enthusiastically replayed these pronouncements from the renegade island with commentators proclaiming that the speakers reflected the true feelings of the Chinese people of Taiwan, as opposed to people who called themselves simply Taiwanese.

  There was a brief uproar, admittedly of the sideline variety, when Chinese television broadcast a story apparently showing happy tourists from Taiwan visiting the Great Wall. This, the commentator stated, was a clear signal that the Chinese people of Taiwan fully supported Beijing's assertion that there was only one China, even as Beijing was gearing up to back reality with military force.

  After a few days a report came out in a German newspaper that the footage was over a year old and that such a visit to the mainland by Taiwanese was now impossible anyway because Taipei had placed a ban on all nonessential travel to the mainland about two weeks before the Great Wall outing had allegedly taken place. The footage duly vanished from Chinese television screens. But there was no correction or clarification.

  As the early summer in the northern hemisphere grew warmer, the prospect of a real fight over Taiwan grew hotter. In Britain, the bookmakers were offering odds on a conflagration. One pledged to pay out even in the event of nuclear Armageddon. The prices of many basic goods in the high street supermarkets began to soar.

  In the Post newsroom, on a day when the Chinese stormed out of a Security Council meeting with a particular flourish, throwing briefing papers at the Americans, Henderson was contemplating an idea for the following morning's front page. It entailed using a mushroom cloud photo of an atomic blast along with a graph to illustrate the sky rocketing prices of the usual basic goods, bread and milk.

  “Nobody drinks milk anymore,” Bailey said as he stood just a couple of feet from Henderson's desk. “All the kids get these days is fizzy junk. Milk costs too much, and people think it's full of hormones.”

  Henderson was silent for a moment. “I drink milk,” he growled. “And just because people are too stupid to take what's good for them doesn't mean that its price is no longer important. Milk stays in the mushroom cloud.”

  “What are you going to use for bread then? A baguette, panini? Nobody in their right mind would buy that sliced rubbish.”

  Henderson had summoned Bailey to his desk, though not for a lecture on British eating habits in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

  “Mr. Bailey, if you want to retain any hope at all of getting on board a plane and flying to America, landing in Washington at the time that a Chinese missile hits the Pentagon, and sending back your very last story on God's earth, then I suggest that you take that seat there in your grubby hand and plonk your bloody arse in it. Now.”

  Bailey smiled. “Jawohl, mein Führer.”

  Henderson shook his head and said nothing for a moment. The newsroom was relatively quiet though it would pick up sharply over the next thirty minutes or so. The interlude would be Henderson's last chance to impart meaningful instructions to his most truculent, and sharpest, reporter.

  Bailey braced himself. He knew that Henderson was winding up.

  “I was about to say that ordinarily you would not be going on a trip like this at a time like this. In fact, this lunatic gathering at the White House wouldn't be going on at all only the Americans and our people see some good old fashioned propaganda in this crazy rich Taiwanese geezer promising to unleash his riches on the poor old Belfast shipyards that have been little more than a tourist attraction for years.

  “Obviously, then, there's a story. It's better again because the ships he wants built are warships that might someday steam into Hong Kong and take it back. That's what he's hoping for anyway.

  “Again, there's a story because the prime minister and the president are side by side on the eve of what might be the third world war.”

  “What about the Irish prime minister, the, what do the
y call him?” Bailey interrupted.

  “Taoiseach,” said Henderson. “Tee-shock” he added by way of phonetic reinforcement.

  “No, he's not going to be there. The Irish are still militarily neutral, not in NATO. Hard to believe, I know, but they don't want their man in a photo-op with the Yanks and Brits as they gear up for the big shooting match. Their Washington ambassador will be there. I hear she's quite a looker. Anyway, your job is to play this up as being an off-the-wall sideshow to the main event. If the war starts while you're within shouting distance of Packer and Spencer, ask them how we should play this thing. Is it the end, the beginning of the end, or just the end of the beginning? I doubt if they will get the joke. After that, just head for the hills.”

  “Do you think it will come down to a nuclear war then?”

  Henderson looked straight at his interrogator. “I remember back in 1967, the Six Day War; before your time. They were all talking about how the Arab and Israeli conflict could spread to the great powers, how America and Russia could move from what was a proxy war on their behalf to a direct confrontation with each other. But that's the difference between then and now. It was a proxy war. This time two superpowers are right in the middle of it themselves, and one of them is looking at an island as its own territory. It could well end up with shooting, yes. I only hope it isn't nuclear weapons.”

  Bailey said nothing. Henderson, he thought, could well be right. He thought of Samantha Walsh in the same instant. She would be Washington, too. Did the Chinese have missiles that could reach the American capital? He would check it out. Henderson stood and stretched. “Mushroom cloud it is then,” he said. “Maybe we should check the price of mushrooms as well.”

  He turned away from Bailey and motioned with his hand. “You've got a couple of days off. Use them well. Pack lightly, Washington's a sauna at this time of year.”

  “Yes, boss,” said Bailey, his mind already racing ahead to his rendezvous on the other side of the ocean with an eccentric Taiwanese billionaire, the leaders of the free world, a sexy diplomat, and the copper he was now sure he had fallen deeply in love with.

  “Oh, and by the way,” said Henderson, his voice slightly raised as Bailey was walking back to his own desk, “that idiot Mercer in Sydney who's always claiming to be our stringer.”

  “Yeah, what about him?” said Bailey without turning around.

  “Well, the MOD in its infinite wisdom has allowed just one pool TV crew on board the Illustrious. That leaves the likes of us floundering around on terra firma with all the action expected on the waves that we once ruled.”

  Bailey nodded as he sat at his desk about twenty feet from Henderson's.

  “Well, Mercer, who may not be such an idiot after all, has somehow snagged a berth on that Aussie hospital ship.”

  “Really?” said Bailey. “What's its name?”

  “Christ, I don't know. HMAS Crocodile Dundee or something.”

  Bailey laughed aloud. Henderson of course knew the name; he knew all the names. Perhaps, he thought, the old bastard was easing up now that the end of the world was possibly in sight. Good timing.

  “Anyway,” Henderson continued, “the point I'm making is that you are going to have some competition for scarce space. And if you're sending back rubbish on all the bonhomie on the South Lawn and he's sending back stories on bombs away, then of course there will be no space at all. For anybody.”

  Bailey was not laughing now, not smiling. He wasn't paying any attention to Henderson at all. He was reading an e-mail.

  It was just above his e-ticket. He was reading it for the second time, and he was feeling something that he had never felt before in his life. It was cold fear. Nick Bailey was shaking.

  51

  THE BREEZE HAS BLOWN steadily off the water and Pender had taken full advantage of clear skies and strong light.

  He had come to northern Maine to finish off the photo project before, as he thought to himself more than once, he finished off two of the world's most important political leaders. The business of taking pictures had been a comfort. Pender did not relish killing, never had. But this mission, his final one, had many peculiar aspects to it, logistical and qualitative.

  Pender had learned through experience that murder was most easily justified, in a personal sense, when the bastard deserved it.

  And they all had of course. His assassination missions had invariably been carried out against men, and a lone woman, who had, each of them, been responsible for many deaths. It was a simple equation, really. By eliminating one he was certain of saving many. He did not think it murder.

  As he mulled over what was past, and what was now looming very large in the near future, Pender had managed to crawl over the rocks to within a few yards of the seals. They had eyed him with only the faintest hint of interest. He in return had been playing at ignoring the beasts, trying to convince them that he was simply part of the seascape.

  It was a remote place, a narrow but deep inlet on the upper coast. Not many people were around, and Pender had enjoyed the calm and quiet for three days.

  Of course, he had not chosen the location. The old priest had, and as he slowly pointed the lens at the nearest seal, the animal staring back at him with sad eyes, Pender wondered what was keeping him.

  The third day! That had been his instruction. Be ready for him on the third day. It had sounded biblical. But now the old man was just simply late.

  Pender raised his camera a few inches, his elbows resting on raw rock just above the tide line. A suddenly stronger breeze blew off the ocean, and he shivered a little. Maine, he thought, was a far cry from the heat of New York or Washington. And he liked it that way. His planned hideaway in Switzerland would be well above sea level, cool to cold most times of the year.

  In the depths of winter he could head for the coast of southern France. Above all, he would need time to rid his body of tropical, forested Africa, a place that he loved and hated in near equal measure, hate having the edge. He needed to rest in a place that did not pull him too much either way. He needed to simply rest.

  Pender's thoughts returned to the creature in his lens. He adjusted the focus slightly and steadied himself. He would have just a few seconds before his uncomfortable position would require adjustment. He wanted the seal to look straight at him, through him and beyond him. It would be that look of casual disinterest that some of the smarter animal species could pull off, even in the closest proximity to predatory man.

  The seal was looking slightly to one side of Pender's optical crosshairs, but, for a split second, turned its head full on to the camera and flared its nostrils. Pender's right forefinger lightly touched the hair trigger button. There was a barely perceptible click and the shot was in the bag. The seal's look had been one of disdain rather than disinterest but it would do. It was a wrap, the final photo for the book. The final photo ever for all Pender cared right now.

  “Nice one,” he said, loudly now because stealth was no longer required.

  The sound of clapping hands was just yards away.

  “Nice one indeed,” said the voice.

  Two humans being one too many, the seal and several of its companions rolled over to one side and slipped smoothly into the water. Pender, too, rolled over and stared at the man standing on top of a rock ten yards behind his position. It was the old priest dressed in hiking gear that looked straight out of a Hillary and Tensing photograph.

  “Ah, there you are,” said Pender, his left hand rising in greeting. “I was beginning to wonder.”

  “Wonder is always something I would encourage,” came the prompt reply. It was unclear for a moment as to which man would make the first move, but an especially big wave showered Pender with spume. Placing his hands around the camera to protect it from the salt water he sprang up as quickly as his stiff joints would allow and covered the distance between the two of them in a series of short steps and slight leaps.

  “I wasn't sure you would make it,” he said, slightly out of bre
ath and standing on an adjoining rock.

  “Oh, I've been here, or at least hereabouts, for several days,” was the response. “I see you have been photographing seals. Fascinating creatures. In the old days they were considered to be the reincarnations of drowned sailors. And perhaps they are. Come, walk with me back to the beach.”

  Without waiting, the priest turned and with a litheness that belied his age negotiated several other rocks before dropping down onto the sand. Pender followed, a little more slowly. His camera would not take well to a tumble.

  “Splendid day,” the priest said, his arms spread wide. “God is smiling on the world, or at least this precious corner of it.”

  Pender caught up. “God might be smiling, but I'd be a little worried over what he's thinking. One of his representatives on earth plotting murder, double murder, perhaps even the multiple kind.”

  The older man stopped and stubbed a booted toe in the sand. “Oh come, come, Mr. Pender. Remember, we don't always call it murder. We churchmen have notched up more than two thousand years of calling it by other names.”

  “Call it what you like,” Pender retorted. “This time around it's not some bloodsucking tin pot dictator in a jungle clearing. These guys are serious shit and seriously protected. I thought the photo covers in the envelope were a mistake. But they're not, are they? You want me to pop off the president and the prime minister, and I don't even know bloody well why.”

  The old man turned and faced the water. He put his hands in pockets in the front of his windbreaker, thus giving himself the appearance of a meditating monk in a habit.

  “Well, I'm glad you want to know why, Mr. Pender,” he said. “I can only assume that we're off the mark and the mission has been accepted in principle.”